


By Some Miracle

by Officer_Jennie



Series: MadaTobi Week [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Character believed to be dead, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-08-10 00:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Officer_Jennie/pseuds/Officer_Jennie
Summary: First chances are missed, seconds are ruined, but the third - by some miracle - might bring them hopeDay 3 of MTW - Prisoner of War





	1. Chapter 1

It had been weeks since the gold and silver brothers had been defeated. Months since they’d had their run in with Tobirama and a few of his students, and by now the hokage’s continued absence could only mean one thing.

Madara had never been particularly close to the Senju heir, both of their stubborn wills clashing more often than not. As far as anyone knew he attended the funeral for the sake of his best friend, standing strong at his side while the other broke apart over an empty grave.

He’d never been one to weep. Not when his own brothers had been burned and sent off to the Pure Lands, nor when his father had been felled in front of him. And he didn’t weep then, when his chest ached, clenched fists hidden in his sleeves, over the lost opportunity to finally speak his heart and mind.

Weeping would not bring back the dead, though he prayed for a miracle that something would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Next scheduled update:** 8-27-19


	2. Chapter 2

His office was cold, the night before having brought rain with it. The damp mixed horribly with the early spring weather, bringing the whole of Konoha down into a dour mood, his entire walk of typical peace drug down through the muck and mud he had to walk through.

That’s how it felt, at least; that the entire village was down along with him. Madara couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen anyone who wasn’t simply going through the motions. Even Izuna had turned quiet, staying on the fringes, not yet ready to interact with the rest of them.

Could be that no one wanted to interact with _him_ in particular. Madara rolled the edges of the document he was currently staring blankly at, not even aware he was wearing it thin, tiny pieces falling off to litter his desk. In his current mood, he wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to stay clear of his way.

His inattentiveness to his surroundings didn’t even register until a knock at his door brought him back. Both his familiarity with Hashirama and with how massive his chakra was should have let him sense him coming, yet it wasn’t until his friend was already shutting the office door behind him that Madara felt him at all.

“Did you leave the windows open all night?”

Hashirama looked awful. His hair dull, eyes puffy, dark circles calling attention to how little he’d managed to sleep. But he went on with small talk anyway, moving to close the windows himself while blabbering on about the weather, his wife, some bakery down the road that had finally started selling tarts again.

Silence was a reminder of loss and absence - it made sense that a man like Hashirama would long to fill it. But chatter only made Madara wish for a sharp barb to cut him off, for the bickering he’d never hear again between one of his most precious people and one he’d longed to make one as well.

“Hashirama.” At his stern tone, the other cut himself off, the silence looming around them. “What did you come here for?”

His next breath was more a shudder, big brown eyes misting in that way that made Madara wish to be anywhere but there.

“Konoha can’t continue to be leaderless.”

Something balled up in his gut, and Madara immediately focused in on his paperwork to fight the nausea back. “Konoha is not leaderless.”

“I stepped down years ago, Madara.”

“That’s not what I-” He cut himself off, swallowing back his instinctual reaction. Tobirama was dead. Gone. Dead men could lead no one.

“Step back up, then.”

Hashirama sat down opposite his desk, his face and tone both dulled by recent grief. “I don’t think that’s wise. My term ended - I don’t think anyone should wear the hat more than once.”

“Then find someone else.” He kept his eyes on the parchment in front of him, rereading the same line over and over, taking none of it in. “He had students. Pick one. Just not the Shimura boy; there’s something off about him.”

“Technically, Sarutobi was named after…” Madara’s gaze stayed unfocused on one word as Hashirama trailed off, and even after he managed to continue Madara could read no further. “The village was placed in his care, but despite it being…his wishes, Saru-kun doesn’t feel he can adequately run the village, and has turned the title down.”

Madara’s hand twitched. “His wishes. And when did he share these wishes?”

Nothing but the low whistle of wind made a sound for a few short breaths; even their movements grew quiet, neither of them daring to move.

“Right before he…”

Hashirama couldn’t finish the thought, but Madara didn’t need him to. He did need a minute to calm himself though, placing the parchment down carefully to prevent tearing it, one hand gripping the edge of his desk so tight he heard the wood creak.

“His final minutes were spent passing his title down to that ungrateful little-” Madara forced himself to breathe, though his teeth were bared when he turned to face Hashirama. “Is there a reason you’re telling me this?”

After years of friendship, Madara was used to Hashirama’s moods. How loud and all-consuming the man’s emotions were: his flailing embarrassments, his full body drooping at the smallest of slights, his idiotic wailing.

Nothing could’ve prepared him to deal with this. How quiet Hashirama truly mourned, the disbelief and despair loud in the absence of all else.

“Konoha needs a leader, Madara.”

The war had stalled after the gold and silver brothers had been defeated, but it didn’t mean it couldn’t start back up. And it didn’t matter in the end if they had the two strongest known shinobi on their side, because if they didn’t _look_ strong their enemies wouldn’t stop.

Hashirama was right. They needed a leader. But why he’d come into his office to talk about it made no sense.

“Pick someone. Just leave me out of it.”

“I already have someone in mind.”

Madara put his quill down harder than necessary, glaring over at his supposed friend. “Spit it out, or you’ll make yourself dizzy speaking circles.”

“I wanted you to be the first.” Madara’s blood ran cold at the words, horror shocking him still. But Hashirama didn’t stop or suggest it was a jest, continuing on with the horror. “Sandaime doesn’t have the same ring to it but-”

“No. I won’t replace him.”

“No one will.”

Truer words could not have been spoken. Nor would they have ever meant more from any other person. Madara might have lost all the ‘what ifs’, the village their hokage, but Hashirama had lost his last remaining brother - and that was a hurt Madara simply could not fathom.

“It was your dream, friend. I couldn’t imagine anyone leading us better.”

He sat back at Hashirama’s words, feeling more exhausted in that moment than he ever had before.

As Hashirama had said, he’d been an advocate for Madara being elected the shodaime - a title that had ultimately went to Hashirama instead. He’d also been the one to push for hokage to be elected, and yet here he was pushing instead to decide for the lot of Konoha who should lead them.

“You suspect the war’s not over.” Why else would he push for _Madara_ in particular. Hashirama might be a sentimental fool about much of life, but he was ready to lay down any life necessary for their village and would not choose poorly.

There were plenty qualified to lead Konoha in peace, especially with the guidance they’d receive from the surviving founders. But theirs was no longer a time of peace.

Madara had kept the field even against the Senju for years back during their conflict. Even while they were vastly outmatched and outnumbered towards the end. No one else had such qualifications when it came to war.

He might have ultimately lost that war, but that was with Hashirama as his enemy. With the Senju on his side…

“Just promise me you’ll think on it. Please…”

All Madara did was grunt at his friend, arms crossed tight over his chest as he stared at the missive on his desk. Thinking on it wouldn’t make accepting any easier. He already knew what his answer had to be, but he let Hashirama leave his office without it. Let himself have a few final days of hoping, knowing no matter how hard he wished it were different - that their nidaime was not lost to the afterlife and would return to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next Chapter Update:** 9-17-19


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't forget this was updating today, what are you talking about?

Cold. Dark. Metal on his wrists, neck, feet. Something warm dripping down his back - sweat, blood, moisture from the ceiling, a mix of all three, there was no way to know. Lungs aching, eyes uselessly blinking at nothing, arms locked into a position where they hung heavy above his head.

Tobirama could hear them. Footsteps above his cell, footsteps down the hall. Coming his way. He wasted no strength on struggling, on trying to bite or jerk away from his tormentors, letting them cut and laugh and bleed him as if he cared not if he lived or died.

He watched. Listened. Waited. As had always been his way when considered defeated. His body was collapsing even in rest, muscles atrophying, mind muddled from lack of sleep and water and food.

But Tobirama was neither dead nor done, no matter what his captors might believe. And that was exactly how he wanted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next Chapter Update:** 10-1-10


	4. Chapter 4

Accepting the role of hokage had torn a part of Madara open that he’d thought had ached far too much in his life. The robes felt wrong on his shoulders, too heavy, too final. That stupid hat that Hashirama had worn was tossed to the side of his office and left to collect dust where it had fallen to the floor, even knowing the first had been the only one to wear it not saving it from any sins of memories it brought his way.

The desk was too small. Covered in unfinished documents that Madara had to have the Uzumaki woman take out of his sight lest he burn them, the handwriting that had long ago dried on the pages too straight and careful and perfect and _painful_ to look at. They went unfinished by the hokage, dealt with by others when Madara refused to listen to any suggestions that it was his job to finish what the man before him had started.

So much of his job he couldn’t touch at first. The cabinets full of perfectly sorted and filed missives, the stacks of scrolls in his desk drawers, the memos scrawled out on spare bits of parchment here and there. Every new piece he found sent him into a whirlwind of pain and denial and _more pain_, every bit causing his temper to spike because it was the best way he knew how to express his grief.

At night, when his house was dark, the candles burned down and out of their wicks, Madara would just sit in the kitchen. Hands cupped around a cup of tea that had long gone cold, forgotten even as he stared down at it, nothing in his mind besides the emptiness that he felt in so much of the world around him.

Even after decades of loss after loss, he couldn’t ever cope with it.

Konoha went on. The streets continued to be busy with life, civilians and shinobi mingling together in the streets as they went along their days. With a new leader the war threats at first spiked but eventually died down, Madara’s strength and unwillingness to bend aiding the village in that front. The clan heads bickered and argued with one another in the council meetings, some snipping that the Uchiha had too much power now, others whinging just to hear their own voices.

Part of Madara wished for it all to stop. His chest dull and heavy as he sat with his arms crossed, listening and speaking fairly when it was required of him, snipping back and putting others in their place when he could. Not a bit of it felt right to him, the world off kilter, everything going on and on despite how it seemed as if it should have stopped.

To him, the world had stopped. The sun and the moon rising and setting seemed an illusion, eggs hatching into chicks and turning into grown sparrows in his backyard over the weeks even though in his mind their progress made no sense. Nothing made sense in a world thrown so off balance that even his own steps faltered over the change in gravity only he felt.

Madara was lost. Unsure and unable to know how to find himself now that he was, and yet so many looked up to him to lead. So he was left shouldering their expectations as he hid his own hurts. Fighting to find a reason to keep going as he strengthened his village’s defenses. Struggling to breathe in his darkest of moments as all of Konoha looked up to him as the one to fix all of their wrongs - when he couldn’t fix the one _wrong_ that had sent him into such a spiral that he eyed Hashirama’s stash of nihonshu in earnest.

Weeks turned into months. Autumn and winter passed into spring. Madara lead his people, did his paperwork, put the council in its place, read missives from the shogun. Konoha went on much in the way it had before - and no one knew of the fractures that were tearing their hokage’s heart apart piece by fragile piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next Chapter Update**: 10-29-19


End file.
